Celebrity Comebacks

By Evan Saathoff

It must be difficult being a celebrity. Everyone says they love you, but when hard times take away your glow, people leave you in the gutter and forget your legacy. And while you're down there, rather than accept your fate, you do nothing but torture yourself over the possibility of a comeback. It's been done many times before. Your second chance is just around the corner. You just have to wait for it and do stupid Look Who's Talking sequels in the meantime. Here is our list of actors who made it back from the grave, career wise, and now sit atop the entertainment world.

11. Robert Downey Jr.

Robert Downey Jr. was always awesome. The problem was that he was also really, really high and unreliable. After one too many stories of Downey passing out in increasingly bizarre places, Hollywood finally decided the time had arrived for Robert Downey Jr. to cool it. Downey suffered through many stints in rehab and eventually gained control of his really fun demons. He now plays fast talking, highly intelligent party animals in not one, but two successful franchises: Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes. We love him just as much as we used to, if not more. If anyone took their comeback and did something special with it, it was this guy.

10. R. Kelly

Quick, what's the first think you think about when someone says R. Kelly? If your answer is anything other than "Peed on an underage girl" than R. Kelly wins the Game of Life forever. You just can't keep R. Kelly down. Most celebrities would be done after such a repulsive public scandal, but Kelly went on to distract the world with the utterly confusing and awesome Trapped in the Closet series. He's not done yet, either. Kelly recently had surgery on his throat and will soon see the release of his autobiography, Soula Coaster. This is R. Kelly's world; we just live in it. But watch out so he doesn't pee on you next.

9. Drew Barrymore

Until the 1990s we only knew Drew Barrymore as the cute little girl from E.T. We figured she'd fall into the child actor history books along with everyone else from that film. Instead, Barrymore rose like a phoenix into the hearts of Gen-Xers everywhere and is now one of the highest paid women in show business. How did she do it? One, she got off drugs. Two, she flashed David Letterman. It's just that easy. Everyone should try it.

8. John Travolta

John Travolta used to be one of the hottest guys in the business. After starring in classic films like Grease, Saturday Night Fever, and Blow Out, it seemed like Travolta would be on top forever. But then the 1980s happened and Travolta found himself losing a decade to embarrassing roles in talking baby movies. Travolta found his comeback with 1994's Pulp Fiction, which finally gave him the box office clout to take embarrassing roles in his own movies. He's been embarrassing on an A-list level ever since.

7. Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson has had quite a career. He's been a boxer, a video game character, a rapist, a cannibal, an animal lover, a documentary subject, and a pretty decent comedic actor. Supposedly, people with facial tattoos have limited employment options, but Tyson proves that's not the case at all. This comeback is probably more healthy than lucrative for Tyson as it's doubtful he's making heavyweight title-fight dough off his Funny or Die clips and The Hangover cameos. Still, he's probably happier making jokes than being the butt of them.

6. Paula Abdul

There was no shortage of late 80s - early 90s female pop singers American Idol could have given a comeback to. But they chose Paula Abdul anyway. Instead of being an inspirational story about humility and second chances for those who deserve it, Paula Abdul's comeback has been all about how monstrous people become when given just the smallest bit of confidence. At least the drunken ramblings are funny.

5. Mickey Rourke

If you think about it, it's kind of weird that Mickey Rourke got a comeback at all. Those of us who watch really bad action films never really had a chance to miss him. But more than that, the Mickey Rourke we have these days really isn't anything like the Mickey Rourke we had back in the 80s. This ultra-ripped plastic surgery nightmare has little in common with the handsome but edgy soft-spoken rebel from Diner. The key to Mickey Rourke's resurgence is that he picks roles that are all about how messed up he looks. He basically played himself in The Wrestler. He was supposed to be foreign and scary in Iron Man 2. And a life of watching ladies jump into rivers explained the Sad Frankenstein thing he had going on in The Expendables. As long as he doesn't show up in any romantic comedies, Mickey Rourke's comeback will probably remain strong.

4. Jason Bateman

Arrested Development didn't have the ratings to save itself from cancellation, but it gave Jason Bateman all the opportunity he needed to go from appearing in zero movies a year to about two hundred. Like Drew Barrymore, Bateman was a child star whose star had dimmed with puberty. And like Barrymore, he's far more popular in his new iteration than he ever was during his first fame go-round. The only problem with this comeback is that it infects nearly every comedy coming out these days with Bateman's unshakable straight man schtick which might get old faster than he can come up with any new moves.

3. Betty White

With such a long career, Betty White has probably had more comebacks than anyone else on this list. This most recent one has to be the biggest, however, if only because it's the one that took place when the Internet was around, and stuff before that didn't really happen. We have room in our pop-culture hearts for one foul mouthed old lady at a time. And with her cutesy delivery, innocent appearance, and wholesome Golden Girls legacy, no one sits on that throne better than Betty White. Her inevitable post-death comeback is really going to be one to stay up late for.

2. Pee-wee Herman

When you host a kids show, getting caught masturbating in a porn theatre pretty much means curtains for your career, not because kids care about what you do with your wiener, but because their parents are uptight jerks. So when the gazillion kids who loved Pee-wee's Playhouse grew up, the time was ripe for Pee-wee to win them all back. And that's exactly what he did with his hit Broadway show which was also broadcast on HBO. He even has a new movie in the works with none-other than Judd Apatow. The Pee-wee Herman comeback is just getting started.

1. Patrick Dempsey

Patrick Dempsey is the guy who was in a bunch of girly movies in the 1980s. Then he sort of just disappeared, save for a brief resurgence now and then in stuff like Scream 3. But now Patrick Dempsey is back making girly movies in the new millennium thanks to a breakout role in the hit girly doctor show, Grey's Anatomy. He's apparently an okay actor? Girls seem to like him anyway.

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